The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1887-06-22

about twenty-five years ago which were re-
peated to me about Hopkins in Baltimore
fifteen years later; SO suppose that both
sets of tales belong to that array of gratui-
tous lying which town gOssips indiferently
mistake for religious motive or for imagi-
nation.
When great man gives anything--a book,
temple, monument--he becomes common
property, as far as folly and familiarity can
go, paying the penalty of the sacrificing one
to the silly many. Apelles or Phidias
made statue and shoemaker was heard
to yawp that it was too long in the heel,
whereupon the sculptor, hearing q second
criticism from the same source, let fly a
maxim that is nearly immortal.
So we may say to those who never give
but are free with their opinion
Stick to your muck, old tongue-wagger !
Thy wealth will never shine"
There is siight tendency in the great
philanthropist and endower toward unsoci-
ability. Availability never gives much
away, not getting much together, but rather
coming to borrow. You dam up stream
before you can make it turn s mile And
how this daily world might irritate a man
who was secretly meditatingA great benefi-
cence for it Rich men see the meanest of
human nature, while human nature thinks
it sees the meanest of all in rich men. The
person who has failed to meet his note, and
therefore is behind in his solemn promise,
thinks his rich creditor is very mean not to
renew it, forgetting that if all debtors did the
same there could be no rich men at all.
Girard and Peabody and Hopkins had all
an ideal beginning in the first was the
idealism of Rousseau, the greatest of believers,
in that he believed in man, and that the
world could be made Heaven. Living among
Quakers, he had the moral courage to name
his ships Montesquieu, Helyetius, Voltaire,
Rousseau, and he gave them to the storms.
10 IA II rlfa IN. r,ao
the portals Of his orphan house. Some say
he was an infidel; who says that has no die
tionary. The orphans come and go, like
Girard sships, unframed by the thunderboIt,
every onea sermon that can act. That which
made the French revolution the greatest era
of Europe also made Girard.
Peabody came from land of general edu-
cation and of domestic independence, He
saw in the South the general want of school
facilities for the poor and in London the
need Of decent homes for artisans. In the
spirit OF his forerunner, Count Rumford, he
threw his little fortune in the two great Gre
vases, and also left some souvenirs of old
times to places like Baltimore where he had
matured. Why should this man give so
much and his old Mary land banker partners
give nothing2 | fear that philanthropy is
not an original thing, but comes out of GER
tain state of society, where it is everybodys
business to promote the general good
Baltimore always reminds me, along the
wharyes, of the Liverpool and Bristol of the
eighteenth century. It's warehouses, in
stead of open piers show the close, personal
processes by which wealth was then made.
Some day the quays will be broader. The
city as it grows westward grows gentler, but
in the old parts stay traces of that day when
Baltimore was the young giant Of the land,
and made old Samuel Rhodes of Philadel-
phia, write to DIR. kin: 81
THE growth of baltimore town makes us
apprehensive that we may yet be reduced to
the condition of old Chester, or Newcastle
ON the Delaware"
GEoRaR ALFRED TOWNSEND.